Cops: Mom bought gas, toys before setting fire

With her 4-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter on her bed beside her, the children's brand-new toys nearby and the front door of their Naperville home deadbolted shut, Nimisha Tiwari ignited the gasoline she had poured around the room. Soon, the room was engulfed in flames, fatally injuring her and her children in what police Monday called a double-murder and suicide.

"We do not know the motive for such a horrific incident," said a subdued Naperville Police Chief David Dial during a news conference in which he described Saturday's fire that killed Tiwari, her son, Vardaan, and daughter, Ananya.

No suicide note was found, Dial said, and all three victims were alive when the fire was started.

He said there were no stab or gunshot wounds or signs of abuse on any of the bodies. He added that there was no evidence the children had been drugged, although toxicology test results won't be available for two or three weeks.

All three were taken to Edward Hospital in Naperville, where Vardaan Tiwari was pronounced dead, while Nimisha and Ananya Tiwari were airlifted to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. Nimisha Tiwari died at 9:45 p.m. that night; the toddler held on until just after midnight, according to the Cook County medical examiner.

Anand Tiwari, Nimisha's husband and father of the children, was in Chicago taking courses toward a master's of business administration degree at the time of the fire and has been "completely cooperative" with police, Dial said.

"He is, as you could imagine, distraught about the loss of his family," he said.

Using store surveillance tapes, witness reports and physical evidence, police pieced together Nimisha Tiwari's last hours, Dial said. The 32-year-old woman stopped the family's silver Honda Odyssey mini-van at a Citgo gas station a mile from their home about 1:40 p.m. and bought a can of gasoline. She bought the children a Thomas the Tank Engine and a Dora the Explorer doll about 2:05 p.m. at a store in Downers Grove, witnesses said.

About an hour and a half later, Nimisha Tiwari took the children and their new toys into the master bedroom of the home in the 1900 block of Nutmeg Lane, on Naperville's east side.

"I can't explain why" she lit the fire, Dial said.

Officials were aware that Nimisha Tiwari and her husband of eight years had a troubled marriage. In May, both spouses filed complaints with police, alleging bad parenting and abuse on the other's part.

Nimisha Tiwari sought an emergency order of protection on May 18, asking the court to order her husband to stay away from her, their home and the preschool their eldest child attended. She also asked the court to order her husband to give her the children's passports and visas.

She told the court Anand Tiwari was a domineering husband who manhandled her, took away the checkbook and credit cards and told the children "Mom is crazy."

She complained that she found a recording device and said she confronted her husband about it. She said her husband had established a separate post office box, and she said he had told friends that she was "going out of [my] mind," and that he "tells me to commit suicide."

The judge granted the emergency order but later vacated it after her husband responded to the allegations.

In his response, Anand Tiwari alleged that his wife had multiple sclerosis. He said she was being treated by a neurologist and was taking medication for the disease.

He said that his wife was suffering psychological effects from the disease and that her "impulsivity endangered their children." He said he had established the post office box because she was not giving him the mail.

William Karpus, a professor of pathology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and an expert on multiple sclerosis, said psychosis and cognitive disorders are symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis.

Which symptoms a patient exhibits is thought to be linked to where lesions are located on the patient's brain, he said.

Psychosis related to her multiple sclerosis is "certainly a possibility" in Nimisha Tiwari's case, he said.

Dial said the couple married in India in 1999 and moved to the United States sometime that same year.

Officials were alerted to the fire after a neighbor saw smoke spilling from the second floor and called for help. Firefighters arrived at 3:45 p.m. -- six minutes after the call came in -- and forced their way in the front door.

It took firefighters about 20 minutes to extinguish the flames.

Late Monday afternoon, three white crosses were planted outside the home, sharing space with a half-dozen stuffed animals, including a pair of teddy bears, one pink and one blue.